SBI (Situation-Behaviour-Impact)
SBI keeps feedback to what actually happened and what it actually caused, so it lands as observation rather than as an argument about someone's character.
Read left to right: situation, behaviour, then impact, each one getting its own box.
Reach for this when…
- Feedback keeps turning into a debate about intent instead of about what happened.
- You're avoiding a conversation because you don't know how to say it without it sounding personal.
- A new manager's feedback comes across as either vague or an attack, never both clear and useful.
How to run it
- Name the Situation: when and where, specifically.
- Describe the Behaviour you actually observed, not your interpretation of it.
- State the Impact it had.
- Pause and let them respond.
- Ask what they'd do differently next time.
A worked example
Situation. Elin Andersson managed a five-person client team at a boutique architecture practice in Gothenburg, Sweden, and had been avoiding a conversation with a talented junior architect, Erik, for weeks.
Applied. Using the SBI form to prepare, she wrote it out first: in Thursday's client walkthrough, you corrected the client's contractor in front of them twice, and the client went quiet for the rest of the meeting.
Result. Said that way, Erik didn't get defensive; he hadn't realised the client had reacted at all. He asked her to flag it live next time instead of after.
The catch
SBI describes what happened well but doesn't by itself explain why, so it still needs a real conversation afterwards, not just a script read aloud. It can also be used to deliver a character judgement dressed up as an observation if the behaviour line described is already an interpretation.
If your Behaviour line contains a word like aggressive or lazy, you've written an interpretation, not a behaviour.
Origin: Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)